Energy
Oil bulls are betting on OPEC+ agreement; will it be enough
BY: Hussein Sayed, Chief Market Strategist at FXTM
Oil futures jumped on both sides of the Atlantic on expectations the world’s biggest producers would finally agree on production cuts. That comes a little over a month after the expired OPEC+ deal led to a surge of crude production by Saudi Arabia in a fight for market share, despite the industry being confronted with the coronavirus-driven collapse in demand.
Brent crude has managed to recover half of its losses from the March lows, while WTI has gained 34%. However, both Benchmarks have still lost more than half their value since the beginning of the year.
Many observers have thought it would be too challenging to get Russia and Saudi Arabia to sit round the same table any time soon, but collapsing Oil prices and intervention from the US have made this possible.
In terms of demand, the US has seen a fall of 14.4 million barrels a day, according to the US Energy Information Administration. India, the world’s third-largest consumer, has seen a plunge in demand of 18% according to FGE, but refineries are painting a more gloomy picture saying their demand tumbled by more than two-thirds in early April. And while China’s economy is expected to fire on all cylinders soon, it still won’t be enough to compensate for the lost demand globally.
Interestingly, Oil futures are trading higher but physical purchasers can buy at a much lower price, with some grades in North America being sold at a price tag of less than $10 a barrel. That reflects the current distress and glut in energy markets at this stage with many wondering whether a Saudi – Russian deal will bring stability back to the market.
Given the magnitude of the current economic crisis, there’s a high chance of a deal being struck. Markets are pricing a 10 – 15 million barrels a day cut in oil production. That could send prices a little higher in the short term, but fundamentals will still rule further out and if demand doesn’t recover by the end of April, then that supply-demand equation will again look terrible. According to the latest estimates, global demand has fallen by nearly 25 million barrels a day and the awaited cut is still far from balancing the equation.
To have a more meaningful deal, the US needs to jump in, but given that all US producers are private companies, it makes this mission very difficult. Another source of stability could come from Friday’s G20 emergency energy minister’s meeting. If more producers join the deal and large oil consumers contribute to the demand side by adding to their strategic oil reserves, this should provide a longer-term stability factor to prices.
The worst-case scenario, where OPEC and its previous allies fail to commit to production cuts, would be disastrous for oil-producing economies and the energy sector. This would see both benchmarks test a single-digit number.
Energy
AVEVA Appoints Joanna Mainguy as New Sustainability Accelerator Director
- Joanna Mainguy will steer strategies for sustainability innovation across AVEVA’s portfolio and partner ecosystem, furthering ESG targets for 2025 and beyond
AVEVA, a global leader in industrial software, driving digital transformation and sustainability, today announced the appointment of Joanna Mainguy as Sustainability Accelerator Director.
Joanna’s appointment testifies to AVEVA’s dedication to strengthening the company’s sustainability impact in line with advancing global climate commitments.
As Sustainability Accelerator Director, Joanna Mainguy will focus exclusively on sustainability solutions and strategies to accelerate innovation that will help AVEVA’s customers to achieve their net-zero targets.
She will look at how AVEVA leverages current market and customer analysis to inform its in-house development team, advise on new customer collaborations and on how AVEVA should grow its partnership network and M&A pipeline to reflect its sustainability priorities.
Joanna will lead the implementation of a sustainability solutions plan tailored to meet the most pressing needs of AVEVA’s industrial customers on low-carbon transition, circularity and resilience, via an integrated product, marketing and sales approach. She will work closely with AVEVA’s portfolio, business area and R&D leads to continue to develop new sustainability capabilities and drive collaboration on go-to-market initiatives that support industry with contributing to an accelerated energy transition and shift to a circular economy.
Joanna was formerly Industry Director, EMEA, for Energy & Sustainability at Microsoft, where she led strategic engagements with major energy providers and supported the energy transition with digital solutions. She has worked across the entire energy value chain and has more than 15 years of experience in process industries and the energy sector, including work for major system integrators, software and energy companies.
Lisa Wee, Global Head of Sustainability, AVEVA, said: “We are excited to welcome Joanna to AVEVA. She will bolster our mission to enable faster uptake of existing sustainability solutions across the industrial landscape, while in parallel we continue to invest in product capabilities and partnerships that will push out the frontiers of sustainability innovation for industry. At AVEVA we look to lead by example on sustainability and we achieved a 93% reduction in Scope 1 and 2 emissions last year. We aspire to help our customers better leverage digital solutions to realize their own ambitious sustainability targets early, and Joanna brings a wealth of experience to help support this.”
Commenting on her appointment, Joanna Mainguy, Sustainability Accelerator Director, AVEVA, said: “I am delighted to join AVEVA at such a pivotal time in its sustainability innovation and growth trajectory. I look forward to working with AVEVA teams and customers to continue to grow the sustainability benefits that can be achieved with AVEVA software. I am also keen to work closely with our partners to drive further positive change at scale, since we know addressing the climate crisis will continue to require expanded collaboration”.
AVEVA actively embeds sustainability into its core product strategy with specific capabilities in its software portfolio.
AVEVA’s software enables organizations to connect and contextualize key sustainability data with artificial intelligence and human insight, enhancing their agility, resilience and sustainability in order to help drive responsible use of the world’s resources.
AVEVA’s 2023 Sustainability Progress Report reveals significant progress across all three pillars of the company’s sustainability framework, encompassing product strategy, operations and culture.
Energy
Climate Change: NNPC Ltd/Total Energies JV Achieves Zero Gas Flare
In pursuit of meeting the targets of 20% (unconditional) and 47% (conditional) greenhouse gas emission reduction as contained in the Nationally Determined Contribution under the Paris Accord signed by the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu administration, the NNPC Ltd/TotalEnergies Joint Venture has achieved zero routine gas flare in all its assets.
According to a statement signed by Olufemi Soneye, Chief Corporate Communications Officer, NNPC Ltd., this feat was announced on Thursday during an inspection tour of OML 100 in South-eastern Niger Delta, off Port Harcourt, by a joint NNPC Ltd and TotalEnergies Team to ascertain the success of the OML Flare Reduction Project launched in December 2023.
The NNPC Ltd/TotalEnergies Joint Venture, which is the concession holder of four leases, had hitherto achieved zero routine flaring across OML 99 (2006), OML 102 (2014), and OML 58 (2016), leaving OML 100 as the only lease with routine flaring going on.
The significance of this achievement is that the last routine flare volume of about 12MMscf/d (twelve million standard cubic feet per day) of gas has now been eliminated giving rise to a greenhouse gas emissions reduction of about 341KtCO₂e/yr.
The achievement is an outcome of a programme introduced by the NNPC Ltd to galvanize action towards achieving the zero routine flare by 2030 across its portfolio of assets.
It is also a testament to NNPC Ltd’s prioritization of sustainability anchored on the ‘first R’ of its 5R Strategy (Reduce, Replace, Renew, Re-plant, Repurpose), as it strives to reduce its carbon footprint.
Work is ongoing across all other assets within NNPC Ltd’s Upstream Directorate to ensure that all assets achieve zero routine flaring by 2030 or earlier.
In line with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s directive to the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC Ltd) to optimise production from the nation’s oil and gas assets, the Company has announced the successful commencement of oil production from the Akpo West Field.
The milestone, which is the result of meticulous planning, strategic collaboration, and unwavering dedication from all stakeholders involved in the project, will add 14,000 barrels per day condensate to the nation’s production. This will be followed up by the production of about 4million cubic meters of gas per day by 2028.
The development of Akpo West which is on Petroleum Mining Lease (PML) 2 (formerly OML 130) leverages the existing Akpo Floating Production Storage and Offloading (FPSO) facility via a subsea tie-back to keep costs low and minimize greenhouse gas emissions.
The milestone was enabled by the strategic leadership of the Group Chief Executive Officer (GCEO), Mr. Mele Kyari, and the Upstream Directorate of the NNPC Ltd whose support played no small role in propelling the operators to actualise the short- and mid-term hydrocarbon production goal of the President Tinubu administration.
Located 135 kilometres offshore, Akpo West is one of the discoveries on PML 2 with proximity to the Akpo main which started up in 2009 and produced 124,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day in 2023.
PML 2 is operated by TotalEnergies with a 24% interest, in partnership with CNOOC (45%), Sapetro (15%), Prime 130 (16%), and the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Ltd as the concessionaire of the Production Sharing Contract (PSC).
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